


bah suvarir (to understand)

by brianbrain



Series: ghosts of the past [5]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Blindness, Dehydration, Force Sensitivity (Star Wars), Force Visions (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Din Djarin, Medical Inaccuracies, Planet Takodana (Star Wars), Trans Din Djarin, Trans Male Character, din hates takodana, din is a fool:tm:, mention of vomiting, technically trans!din but not a huge appearance, temporary blindness tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:48:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27914791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brianbrain/pseuds/brianbrain
Summary: major spoilers for chapter 14 of The Mandalorian!---I will not start this child down that path.Din understands.
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin, Boba Fett & Fennec Shand, Din Djarin & Boba Fett, Din Djarin & Fennec Shand
Series: ghosts of the past [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594726
Comments: 7
Kudos: 128





	bah suvarir (to understand)

The child was gone. 

The child had been taken, and Din had only been able to stand frozen, gaping at the dark forms receding into the clouds. He had been too late, too slow.

Too foolish to not have checked for hostiles beforehand.

If Boba and Fennec hadn't been there, Din wasn't sure how long he would have stayed, swaying just slightly with gaze tilted to the sky. 

If Boba and Fennec hadn't been there, he would have been able to wait by the Seeing Stone with the child. If Din hadn't picked up the armor on Tatooine--

Din ground his teeth together harshly. If, if, if; it was useless to linger on things in the past. He was still leaving Tython, although not in the Razor Crest. Gideon had taken that from him too, the place that had first given him the feeling of home so long ago, and reduced it to nothing but a handful of ash. Only the metal ball the kid had liked and the beskar spear had survived the single, devastating hit. His quest was as good as failed, but Boba and Fennec had insisted on upholding the guarantee of the child's safety, and Din had had no other choice but to accept.

His ribs twinged as he shifted, the barest hint of a headache making itself known, and Din's lips twisted sourly at the reminder of the Seeing Stone's force field. The Force, as Tano had called it, was truly nothing but sorcerer's magic, an object of curiosity and power that sickened grown sentients to the point that they would hunt a _child_ with an entire Imperial light cruiser. Perhaps a powerful child, yes, but still a child, and one who easily tired at that.

Din squeezed his eyes shut, breath hitching. It was much too bright, where the Razor Crest would never have been, and the Slave I's distinctly off hum was making his stomach twist. Desperately, Din tried to turn his thoughts elsewhere, but recently his life had been nothing but a string of running and searching, running and searching. Running from bounty hunters, searching for a safe place for the kid, running from bounty hunters again, and then from the kriffing Imps. Searching for the _jetii_. For Manda's sake, Din had just gotten the Crest fixed after they'd almost died because the _ad'ika_ couldn't keep his appetite under control! 

"Mando," Fennec called from the cockpit, and Din jerked alert. "Get up here. We need to figure out where we're going."

Right. This wasn't his ship, and Din couldn't wallow in the hold as he pleased. He eased onto his feet and moved towards the ladder, cocking his head. Even his bootsteps sounded different, more hollow, matching the gap widening in Din's chest.

Fennec turned at the sound of the door whooshing open and closed, and Din gave her a short nod. Boba, on the other hand, kept his eyes on the dashboard, fiddling with the controls.

"What is the plan?"

A plan. A plan for a suicide mission; who in the galaxy made those? He must have said as much, because Boba was speaking again.

"We are getting your foundling back. The least you can do is plan for it. Contacts, a way to find the cruiser, how to get in and out."

Din opened his mouth, considering his options. "Nevarro," he said shortly. "I know the marshal there."

"That's Outer Rim," Fennec supplied, having turned back to the ship computer. "We'd stop at Takodana for fuel."

Din stiffened at the name, but didn't argue. This wasn't the Razor Crest, Din chided himself, he was a mere hitchhiker. "Understood."

"ETA 96 hours," Fennec announced, and Din excused himself for the jump into hyperspace.

96 hours was a long time to be cooped up with two strangers on a ship hurtling along at lightspeed, and Din spent a good chunk of it alternating between eyeing the ship around him suspiciously and cleaning his gear for the millionth time. Boba and Fennec didn't speak to him much, staying in the cockpit while Din remained in the hold, which Din didn't mind in the slightest. He wasn't sure what he would have said anyways; something like _oh yeah, recently I let my clan get slaughtered because I did something I shouldn't done in the first place and then learned that we were part of an extremist cult_ probably wouldn't go too well.

Despite the chrono on his HUD, Din was fast loosing track of time, eyelids becoming heavy as the throbbing in his head grew. After the fifth time of almost falling over his own feet when he took a break to pace the hold, Din finally gave up and let himself slump against the wall, a strange floating feeling settling into his limbs.

Din must have slept, because sometime later he cracked his eyes open to see a ration bar and a water pouch beside him as he heard light footsteps tap away. Fennec. Din considered the food for a bit, but didn't touch it. While all his limbs were still attached, they felt miles away from Din, and he dozed off once more. He didn't wake again until someone shook him, and instinctively Din whipped out his blaster.

"Whoa, Mando, no need to fatally shoot me again," came Fennec's laugh, and Din blinked through the haze to make out her figure before him. "I'm just here to tell you we have around a day and a half left of travel to Takodana. You should eat something before we get there."

The mere mention of Takodana made his stomach squirm, and Din idly observed the world tilting as he shook his head. "I'm good," he said, and grimaced at how hoarse he sounded. There was no way Fennec hadn't taken notice, helmet or not. 

Thankfully, Fennec didn't comment, although she did arch an eyebrow at him. "Really. Well, I'll leave you to it then."

Din watched her leave, swallowing thickly. Did he really have to? Perhaps he would later, but Din wasn't risking eating rations just for him to waste them by throwing them back up. Besides, blissful darkness was already tugging at him again, and Din let himself slide back into unconsciousness.

The next time Din awoke, it was to the distinct sound of beskar resonating. Someone was taking the beskar spear, Din thought, and instantly he leapt to his feet, blaster pointed in the direction of the noise.

"Put it down," Din snarled, and belatedly realized that he couldn't see his attacker, or anything actually, only vague fuzzy shapes of color. He squinted, to no avail, and _dank farrik_ , why did humans have to be so reliant on sight? He was never going to be able to hunt again, at this rate, and then Din would be back to being useless, a waste of space--

" _Tracy'uur daab_ , Mandalorian," someone said distantly, words flowing smooth and even in Din's mind. " _Tracy'uur daab_."

Din complied, registering the slightly clipped words of the Mando'a command, and set his blaster down on the floor. No _aruetti_ would be able to so perfectly copy the accent, the nuanced inflection, and Din stilled, waiting for his next order.

"I will leave the spear here on the floor," they continued, and Din felt the speaker shift their bulk on their feet. "It is yours and I do not fault you for your reaction, but it had slipped under a shelf."

"Wow, Mando, really trying to get the jump on us, huh?" Somebody else was walking towards him now -- more gliding than walking, really -- trailed by the faintest sway of sturdy cloth and a wisp of wind.

Mando. That was him, Din assumed, but how was the other Mandalorian called?

"Mando? Fallen asleep on your feet?"

"No," Din bit out shortly, trying to remember where he was. Somewhere in space, but clearly not on the Crest. Why was he not on the Crest? Come to think of it, where had he gotten the beskar spear?

The air shifted again, too close for comfort, and Din took a step back, away from the source. Abruptly, the movement stopped.

"You good there?"

To answer truthfully or not? He'd definitely heard this voice before, the barest hint of a habitually confident drawl present, but Din couldn't place it, wasn't sure if it was one who'd helped or hindered.

"Yes," he replied, after a long moment, but from the faint shuffling he received it was obvious that Din's company did not believe him.

" _Me'vaar ti gar?_ "

Din hesitated, still puzzling over where the kriff he was. He might as well rip off the bandage and deal with the consequences as they came. The reactions would give him the answers he needed, at least, and clearly he wasn't the only Mandalorian in this little party. 

"Can't see," Din supplied. Then it hit him: he hadn't had water... in a while. So it was dehydration, but how had it even gotten that bad?

Apparently his two companions had figured as much, and someone shoved a pouch into his hand. That meant that Din had been with this group long enough to get dehydrated, and they also cared enough to keep him alive and were perceptive enough to notice -- wait, were they walking away?

"Take your time and drink slowly, Mando," came the easy drawl. "Check yourself for a concussion and eat something before you fall over. There's a ration pack on the crate behind you, and we have an Imperial light cruiser to catch."

An Imperial light cruiser. When had he last seen a Imp? His last bounty from the empire had been a 50 year old sentient who turned out to be a little green gremlin--

Din groaned and turned the pack in his hands, searching the edges for its opening so that he could tip up his helmet to sip at the cool liquid. There was a wide expense of beige to his left, and Din leaned against it, hoping it was the wall. It didn't give away, at least, and Din sighed. Why hadn't he thought of the concussion, with the headache and the nausea and the horrible vision? 

Well, because he'd had a concussion, of course. And kriff, he had no idea when he'd fallen asleep. But the real question: How many people had he even killed successfully?

Apparently two less than he'd thought. Fennec had just told him how to care of himself, and since not-dead Gideon had destroyed the Crest, Din was now hurtling towards Takodana for an unavoidable refueling. He allowed himself a scowl. Din hadn't been to Takodana in decades and didn't particularly want to break the trend, but at the moment, it was water first, then food. With some luck, Takodana would be uneventful. 

Something told him Takodana would be far from uneventful.

Takodana Castle hadn't changed a bit from the last time Din had seen it, not that he'd expected a thousand year old building to do so in his lifetime in the first place. It would have been nice, however, for Kanata to have swapped the blinding bright flags hanging all over the walls of the courtyard and on her statue to some more... tasteful decor. 

After leaving the Slave I with the mechanics, they'd naturally headed for the place with the most sentients, and thus, the most information. Whether Din liked it or not, if they had to spend any time on this planet, they could at least make use of that fact that Kanata's place attracted all kind of people. 

In the interest of moving faster, the three of them had split up and agreed to meet back at the ship in an hour, so Din found himself squeezing past the crowd, not entirely sure where he was heading. By the time he'd reached the far wall, Din still hadn't heard any chatter about the Empire, or of any other activities that would point to the Imps.

Din let out a huff, the cantina music still grating on his ears. There were many reasons he hadn't wanted to come back to Takodana, and the noise was barely a drop in the bucket.

"I thought you might be coming."

Din nodded coolly, acknowledging Kanata's presence beside him. He'd suspected before, and had accepted that the Pirate Queen usually knew more than was given. That was fine. She was no _jetii_ , with her no fighting policy and actions that were at least not overly malicious.

"But you can't help me."

"Hm. Perhaps I can help you with one thing. Why don't we take a short walk?"

Din frowned but decided to humor her, falling in step as she led him through a door. It opened to a stone hall, sloping gently down into darkness, and he listened to his boots echo faintly in the corridor as they descended, trying to judge how far it went on. Possibly father than the castle itself.

"These lead to the tombs," Kanata told him, as the door shut with a soft thump.

"Of whom?"

Kanata smiled at him, lips pulling up and eyes crinkling in a movement he more felt than saw. "There are many. Some of them are nobodies, names lost by the passage of time. Others, others not so much."

The skin on the back of Din's neck prickled at that, but thankfully the passageway soon flattened and widened out. He didn't quite see what kind of help he would receive by visiting the resting places of dead sentients, but he did have time to kill before getting back to the Slave I, so Din didn't question it.

That was, Din didn't question it until the walls around him blurred and exploded into billowing grey columns.

"Uh-"

The young Togruta seemed oddly familiar in the way they moved, smooth and easy on their feet, dancing with their blades. Yet this wasn't _his_.

He watched the explosion warily, eyeing curiously dull flames. Wisps of red raced past his shoulders, and he recoiled but could not move, transfixed by the sights. Ghostly legions of droids marched through his mind, and distantly a thousand men screamed in the same voice, greenish fog muffling their pleas. Then came solemn faces, self assured and complacent bodies tucked comfortably into flowing robes and lounging in soft chairs, but they were liars, liars and fools! and he bared his teeth, blood simmering.

He did not recognize them. He only knew that they had done unspeakable horrors.

Their faces melted away like wax in the flood of _helphelphelp_ , and the cries were all so young, raw and terrified. Children, children who knew nothing but war, adults crammed into small bodies and adults hardly ten years old holding guns and dying and adults tired, the life seeping out of them with every weary step they took into battle. 

He could not tell if the moisture on his face was real.

Abruptly silence fell oppressive and heavy, only to be replaced by the crackle of a lightsaber that filled his ears with blood.

"You failed me! Do you know what I've become?" came the hoarse snarl, and Din retched.

The floor was real. It was cold, dark and cool stone that had not seen the light in centuries, and Din pressed himself to it, heaving.

The tears were real, sliding hot and slow down his face. He was vaguely aware there was another being in the room with him, and Din latched on to the presence as a drowning man does to his savior.

"Osik!"

The word tumbled from his burning throat, gouging gashes along the quivering flesh, and Din shivered, curling in on himself.

These were not his memories.

These were not his memories.

These were not his memories. 

"You saw, then?" came a voice from above him, and Din gritted his teeth. Kanata.

"More than I wanted to," Din bit out.

"But you understand, now, what she meant."

She. Tano. The Togruta. "Yes." Din whispered faintly. "But there is no other choice."

"There are more ways to walk than merely Jedi or Sith. The galaxy is not a two-sided coin," was Kanata's calm reply, and Din grabbed for its threads, wrapping himself thinly in its steady security. "You can be sure that his abilities will not fade. It is the nature of his species."

"The Jedi."

"The Jedi left him," Kanata said simply. "The Empire came looking for him before they ever did. What people abandon their children?"

Din hissed, shrinking away from the beastly suggestion, and slammed a gloved fist down. Sparks raced up his knuckles, jarring his wrists to his elbows.

"Enough," he croaked, stumbling to his feet. " _Enough_. I cannot."

"You will find yourself more capable than you may expect."

"I am no Jedi," Din spat, blinking harshly as he took an unsteady step forward. "Get out of my way."

Kanata shifted back, and Din tripped past her, hands trembling and legs unwilling. He forged on, away, away from the calls of the dead, his mouth settling into a grim line. Kriff the _jetii_ and their strange magic, kriff the Empire, kriff Kanata for being right, kriff Tano for being right.

"It is all the better that you are not a Jedi," Kanata called after him, and Din choked down a sob.

_What people abandon their children?_

_My people would never._

**Author's Note:**

> Bless to Spidey from the covert discord for bringing up the question of if Maz Kanata would respond to the Seeing Stone! Seeing as Maz is a pretty neutral character, I wrote this instead.
> 
> Uh. If you ask me Boba would have fueled back on Tatooine before coming Tython but shhh, it's for the _plot_! Though if you have any better suggestions why that are less stupid, I would love to hear them.
> 
> Din's Force vision could have been written way better, but I gave up. Whoops. Maybe later.
> 
> jetii: Jedi, aka "enemy sorcerers"  
> ad'ika: child  
> Tracy'uur daab: lit. blaster down  
> aruetti: outsider, foreigner  
> Me'vaar ti gar?: how are you, but you have to answer honestly. used to get sitreps


End file.
